The Nature of Forever
by TexanRose
Summary: After a year of not seeing or speaking with Ezra, Aria return to Rosewood to deliver some news. AU.


**This story is based on the season 1 Ezria relationship where he's her teacher and she's his student and her parents didn't know they were dating. **

**Aria is 20 in this story. **

**I do not own PLL.**

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How long is forever? Is it a single second, a blink of an eye, or is it slow and steady like sand passing through an hourglass? It was these questions Aria Montgomery contemplated as she sat on the window seat of her bedroom in her parent's house and watched the autumn leaves fall from the oak tree in the backyard. One, two, three, four…they blew to the ground slowly and continuously—steadily—and Aria wondered how the leaves could so easily be severed from their roots, fly away, and never return. She wondered if it was the same way with people.

Sighing, Aria got up from her perch and walked around the room that had been hers for so long, touching the things she had placed in the spots she had deemed appropriate. A hairbrush here. A childhood doll there. The dozens of journals she had once covered with her scribbling sat on the bookshelf. She picked up on of the framed photos on her desk and stared for a moment. An unwanted smile tugged on the corner of her lips as she set the picture back down. A part of her felt like she had been gone for decades, but another part of her, a part as equally aware, felt like she'd only been away from the room for a few seconds; it had been forever since she'd stood in that room.

It was a childhood room filled with childish dreams and dramas and wishes. It was a girl's room full of secrets and laughter and love. Aria sighed. It wasn't her room anymore. Of that she was certain.

A knock on the wooden door startled her out of her thoughts. She eyed the person warily when she saw it was her father. Their relationship had been less than cordial since her senior year of high school.

"Your mother and I never changed it, you know," he began quietly, leaning against the door frame.

"You should have," replied Aria numbly as she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floral wallpaper that intersected with her line of vision.

"You could have come home," Byron told her, folding his arms across his chest. "You could always have come home."

"As long as I came home alone, right?" Aria shot back angrily. "You didn't want anyone knowing my secret."

"You didn't want anyone knowing your secret," he returned, his voice tight. "You were just as much to blame."

"No," shot back Aria coldly as she looked at her father. "I was all to blame."

"Not all," responded Byron with a grimace and a hard look."

"Are you two okay?" asked Aria's mother as she popped her head through her daughter's bedroom door. "Apparently not," she finished for herself when she saw the glares being exchanged between father and daughter. "Dinner's almost ready," she told the silent pair. "I expect you to be down at the table in ten minutes." She paused for a moment as she decided how to break her next piece of news. "And I invited Ezra."

Both her daughter and her husband shot looks at her, but she ignored them as she walked back downstairs and into the kitchen. Leaving Aria to contemplate the implication of her mother's words, Byron followed Ella.

Aria looked around her room one more time. It was a little girl's room. And she wasn't a little girl anymore. She hadn't been for a long time.

Aria didn't try to look pretty for Ezra like she would have in the past. He had already seen her through the toil and trial of childbirth. Instead, ran a brush through her hair, traded her pajamas for jeans and a sweatshirt, and made sure that the socks on her feet matched. She knew that she looked tired and weary and worn. But when she answered the door, he looked just the same.

Once, Ezra would have worn slacks and a button-down shirt complete with a tie for an evening meal with Byron and Ella Montgomery, his colleagues and co-workers. But this night, he wore jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. Ever since the incident, he came to the Montgomery house for Aria and for no one else. She noticed that somehow he looked younger now than he had in years past, more vulnerable, more afraid.

And he had a right to be all those things.

He practically gulped down the scotch that Byron grudgingly offered him. He broke into the wine near his plate when he saw that Ella seated him next to Aria at dinner. Mike looked about as comfortable as Ezra felt, and Aria's expression betrayed nothing at all.

Dinner was a quiet and tightly polite affair with no one speaking more than absolutely necessary. And after a sumptuous meal of salad, pasta, and a wonderful homemade apple pie that Ezra didn't know whether to take as a gesture of goodwill or a kill with kindness technique, Mike excused himself from the table and the repressive atmosphere, leaving Aria and Ezra alone with Byron and Ella.

Ezra began to help Ella clear the dinner table, but she shooed him away and shot Aria a pointed look.

Sighing, Aria made an announcement to the room, looking at no one in particular. "Ezra and I are going for a walk." She gave Ezra a look of her own that dared him to contradict her while Ella silenced her husband's protests.

The younger couple fumbled with shoes, jackets, and scarves before heading out the front door, leaving the older couple to argue about the situation.

"She shouldn't be alone with that man," fumed Byron as dishes clattered beneath his hands.

"She needs to tell him," answered Ella while she started washing the dishes.

"He doesn't ever have to know," let out Byron. "That man should stay out of our lives."

Ella shut off the faucet and turned to her husband. "What are you afraid of?" she asked, her eyes leveling with his, her tone leaving no room for pithy excuses.

Byron sighed in defeat. "That he'll hurt her again," he let out through clenched teeth.

Ella turned the water back on and let it run for a few moments before answering her husband. "They already lost a child together. He can't do much more that would break her heart."

Ezra followed Aria as she led him down her street and around the block. He watched her as she watched the stars, glowing and dancing in the black night sky. She looked young and vulnerable and alone.

"They don't hate you, you know," said Aria suddenly, breaking the silence. "They hate what did to me, what happened. They don't like you, but they don't hate you either," she explained.

"Will they ever forgive me?" he asked, determined to continue the conversation since she had started it. It was the most words they had exchanged in over a year.

"When enough time passes, I think," she told him quietly.

"Will you forgive me?" he questioned softly.

"There's nothing to forgive," she answered, shrugging. The pair lapsed into silence for a few more minutes until Aria saw it in the distance. "There it is," she cried. Her walking sped up and Ezra matched his pace to hers.

It was a park he noted when they got closer. It was the kind with swings and slides for children and picnic tables for parents. The gravel crunched underneath their shoes as they made their way to the swings. They sat beside each other on the thin plastic flaps of the swing seats and rocked gently.

"It was as much my fault as it was yours," said Aria suddenly. It was a moment before Ezra realized they were continuing their earlier conversation. "I could've said no, could've been on the pill, could've lied to my parents when they asked who the father of my child was," she elaborated. She let out a bitter laugh, harsh-sounding and hollow. "I could have broken it off with you when I found out you were my teacher."

"But I could have been with you, been there for you, when you were pregnant when Nathan was dying. He was my son too," he finished giving Aria a hard glance.

"The only reason you aren't in a jail cell right now is because you listened to my dad's threats. He would have kept you away, and Nathan a secret, any way he could." She rocked a little more in the swing, allowing gravity to pull her back and forth, digging her heel in the gravel when she wanted the motion to stop. "Besides," she continued hesitantly, "his death was not your fault.

"It wasn't yours either," he tried to reassure her. "His heart was the problem."

Aria didn't respond at first, the metal links of the swing squeaking as she rocked instead. "It was my fault, Ezra." She sighed and then paused. "You must hate me. I ruined your life, took your son away from you, and then I watched as he died in the tiny hospital bed attached to wires and machines. You never even got to hold him." She swallowed back tears and paused before continuing. "And we haven't talked since it happened."

"That's not your fault, Aria," he said, reaching out an arm to give her a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder. She flinched at the contact and he pulled his arm away.

She cocked her head and looked at him and thinking of no better way to tell him, she let it out and said the truth. "I have the same heart defect that killed Nathan. That's what I came out here to tell you." Suddenly, the tears she had been keeping at bay rushed out, blurring her vision and realized Ezra had gotten out of his seat only when she felt his sweater absorb her tears.

"He was only eight weeks old," she sobbed, her words coming out ragged and jumbled through her heavy breathing. "I never got to hold him." She cried and sobbed and muttered incoherent thoughts about her dead son, and although Ezra hadn't seen her in months, he held her close as she was confronted with the past. It was only when Aria felt tears on her head that she realized Ezra was crying too. For a moment, the rest of the world didn't matter. For a moment, they were two heartbroken parents and were swallowed in their grief at the child they had both lost.

And later, when they were collapsed on the ground, her head resting on his chest, staring at the stars, that she told him. "I'm dying," Aria whispered in his ear.

He looked at her as he tried to form words.

She shook her head. "Maybe not today or tomorrow or within the next ten year, but one day I'll just be gone, just like Nathan."

They lay there for a few moments, Ezra stroking Aria's hair. He thought about the life they could have had together, the life they had planned on sharing. A life that seemed as illusive and impossible as snow in summertime. "Marry me," he let out suddenly, breaking the silence, wondering why they couldn't have that life after all, after all the hurt and the pain.

Aria sat up and looked down at him. "What did you say?"

He sat up and looked at her. "Marry me," he repeated.

She burst out in laughter, the kind that made her want to cry at the same time. "We can't just get married, Ezra. You can't go around marrying your ex-student, especially not ones you knocked up."

She had expected him to come to his senses, nod his head in agreement and say what an awful idea it was. Instead, he told her something else entirely. "I never stopped loving you. Even when your father threated to turn me into the police, even in all these months we've been apart, I loved you. Marry me."

"You can't marry me, Ezra," she told him matter-of-factly. "I'm dying." She huffed as she got up and wiped the gravel and grass form her clothes. She began her trek home, leaving him sitting in the playground.

"Aria," he called as he caught up with her. He grabbed her arms, pinned them to her sides and kissed her. As she looked at him in shock he let out hurriedly, "So what if you were my student? It doesn't matter anymore. You're twenty. And so what if we had a kid together? That's all the more reason for us to be together. And," he continued in a rush, "And so what if you're dying? I want to be with you."

Aria wriggled out of his arms and studied his face for a moment , judging the sincerity in his eyes. "I don't know when it could happen. It could be fifty years from now when I'm wrinkled and gray. It could be two years from now when I'm taking groceries out of the car. Is that the kind of life you want? Not knowing if you're going to come home to a dead wife?"

"If it means that I get to be with you," he breathed, "then yes. To all of it. I'll love you forever."

She nodded silently and began to walk down the street. After a few steps, she turned to look back at him. "Are you coming?" she asked. "Someone has to tell my dad we're getting married, and I'm sure as hell not doing it alone."

With a smile plastered on his face, Ezra caught up Aria, and as they walked back to the Montgomery house, her fingers intertwined with his.

How long is forever? Was it merely a moment, a glimpse and a glance before it was over? Or was it slow and steady like the ticking of a clock? It was these questions that Ezra contemplated as he looked around his wife's childhood room. It seemed like centuries since Aria had lived within these walls, but it also felt like a few moments ago she was walking around it, her feet silently padding on the rug. It seemed like forever since he'd seen her, held her in his arms, kissed. It seemed like just yesterday she was laughing next to him.

Sighing, Ezra set the cardboard box in his hands on the bed and looked around the items in the room. Byron and Ella hadn't changed it at all in the five years since she'd inhabited it.

"I know what it feels like, now," said a voice softly at the doorway.

Ezra looked up and saw Byron leaning against the doorframe. "What feels like?" he asked hollowly.

"To lose a child," he answered. "I miss Aria," he said. "I have some of her things tucked away in the corner of my office to remind me of what she was like, of who she was."

Ezra grunted and took one of his wife's journals and put it in the box before adding a few books to the pile. "I miss Nathan," he finally answered, "more than words can describe. At least Aria was here for years instead of days."

Byron swallowed and observed the younger man before continuing. "She must have really loved you."

"I really loved her," replied Ezra, tossing a few more things into the box.

"Was it worth it?" asked Byron.

For a moment, Ezra wasn't quite sure what his father-in-law meant. Was it worth getting caught for loving his student or was it worth marrying Aria knowing that each day could be her last? And he realized that his answer was the same for both questions. "Yes," he replied stuffing a teddy bear to the top of the box. "I will miss them both very much."

"They died young," stated Byron. "Aria was only twenty-five."

"Too young," echoed Ezra, gathering the cardboard box in his arms and turning towards the door. "But they are cherished and remembered."

Byron stopped Ezra before the younger man could walk past him, grabbing his forearm. The pain was evident in his eyes. "Forever?" he asked in a small voice.

"Forever," Ezra affirmed as Byron dropped his hand and watched as the man his daughter had loved beyond reason walked down the stairs, left with nothing but a box of her material things and his memories as a way to remember the woman he had promised to love for forever.

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_**Here's the breakdown of what happened in case you didn't catch it. **_

**Aria and Ezra got caught in their relationship by Byron (not the police) when she got pregnant with his child her senior year of high school.**

**Byron and Ella found out who the father was and Byron threatened him to make him stay away from Aria and the baby and sent Aria away to have the baby. **

**Aria gave birth to a son she named Nathan, and Ezra was able to briefly see her and Nathan from time to time. **

**Nathan is born with a heart defect, exacerbated by the fact that he was born premature. He died at 8 weeks old. **

**Aria and Ezra part ways after his death and don't speak for a year and Aria moves away from Rosewood. **

**Aria discovers that she has a heart defect (the same kind that killed Nathan) and knows she is dying but doesn't know when her heart will give out. It could be fifty years or it could be five days. **

**When she finds out about her condition she returns home a year after Nathan died and this is where the story begins. **

**The story ends after Aria's death with Ezra going through her things in the Montgomery house. Aria died at 25. **


End file.
